Chapter Text
-- Obito --
Uchiha Obito woke to sunlight slipping through the narrow gap between the curtains. Morning light fell across his face—too bright, and far too warm. A quiet groan escaped him as he squinted, instinctively lifting a trembling hand to shield his eyes, his fingers shaking for a moment before finally covering his face.
Strange, he thought.
The light was bright… and warm.
Something was wrong.
It shouldn’t be like this. The light greeting him was never supposed to feel this warm. No—there shouldn’t have been any light greeting him at all. Obito had never imagined being welcomed by something so bright and gentle. He had been certain that someone with a soul as broken as his would only end up swallowed by the deep darkness of hell. And if there was any light waiting for him there, it would be hellfire—scorching, painful, and horrifying.
But what he felt instead was warmth.
Uchiha Obito—a thirty-one-year-old man who had long since lost hope in the world and drowned in his hatred of reality—should have been dead. He had left this world behind; his body had been destroyed, reduced to ash by Kaguya’s jutsu as he tried to save his old friend, Kakashi. And yet, somehow, here he was—lying here, breathing, waking beneath sunlight filtering through the curtains.
Dizzy and sluggish, Obito struggled to sit up. His head felt heavy, spinning, as if he’d been struck with a blunt weapon at full force. His vision blurred. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to gather his scattered consciousness. When his awareness finally settled and his sight cleared, he slowly looked around.
That was when he realized it.
This place was familiar.
Now sitting on a futon mat, Obito stared at his childhood bedroom—a place he had buried deep within his memories long ago. The walls were just as he remembered them, still well-kept despite patches of faded paint. Beside him stood a study desk and a swivel chair facing the window. A bookshelf rested near the desk, filled with school textbooks, a few scrolls, and incomplete comic volumes.
Shock crashed over him.
His jaw fell open, his breath catching in his chest. His trembling right hand lifted to clutch his head as the dizziness returned—but the motion stopped the moment his fingers brushed the right side of his face.
Smooth.
That was what he felt.
There was no scar—no mark that had carved itself into his face for years. No wound from the mission in Kusagakure. No permanent reminder that was never meant to fade.
“What… what happened…?” he thought to himself.
Something was deeply wrong. Not only was the scar gone—his body felt lighter. He forced himself to stand, stumbling slightly as the strange unease intensified. It wasn’t just lighter. It felt smaller.
Heart pounding, Obito hurried out of the bedroom and down the hallway until he reached the bathroom. The mirror inside was fogged over by humid air. He raised a hand to wipe it clean—then froze.
The hand staring back at him was small.
Breathing fast, heart racing, he wiped the fog away.
The reflection in the mirror made him go still.
The face was young. Too young. Unscarred. Untouched by the suffering he had carried for over a decade.
Reflexively, Obito formed the Ram hand seal and shattered his chakra.
“Kai.”
He repeated the jutsu again and again, forcibly releasing his chakra with brutal intensity until his breathing turned ragged.
Nothing happened.
The same young face continued to stare back at him from the mirror.
He looked again.
His face was youthful—soft. There was no scar along his left cheek. His cheeks were fuller, rounder than they had been in adulthood. His hair was black, not white, from the Juubi sealed within him.
Everything about his body had changed.
Everything except…
His eyes.
Those obsidian-black eyes were the same.
Empty. Hollow. As if hiding a darkness that refused to leave.
This was insane.
Unbelievable.
How could he be alive again? Not just alive—but inside his own childhood body?
He stared at his reflection once more, studying the unscarred, innocent face that once held so much hope for the world. A face untouched by the horrors of that day.
And for the first time in a long while…
He felt afraid.
It took some time before Obito managed to calm himself.
Now he sat at the study desk in his room, his mind blank. He leaned his head back, staring up at the ceiling as he released a heavy breath, then slumped into his chair in silence.
“Is this really genjutsu?” he wondered, still unable to believe it.
“But it’s strange…”
“I tried everything to break out of it—and nothing worked. There’s no change… nothing happens.”
He scanned the room again, focusing on the smallest details. Everything felt so… real.
Genjutsu wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He could even feel his smaller body clearly. After years of wielding the Sharingan, Obito had trained himself to recognize the signs of illusion.
There was no way he wouldn’t notice if this were fake.
“Is this Kaguya’s doing?”
The thought sent fear surging through him again.
“If this really is her doing… does that mean Kakashi and Naruto failed?”
The more he thought about it, the more frantic he became.
If Kakashi, Naruto, and the others had failed, then Kaguya had succeeded. She would have unleashed the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Everyone would be trapped in her endless genjutsu.
If this were the Infinite Tsukuyomi, then it made sense for it to feel different. More real. Painfully real. Its purpose was to let people live inside their ideal dreams—until they could no longer tell illusion from reality.
That realization only deepened his fear.
This was all his fault.
Everything was his fault.
Because of his foolishness. His cowardice. His desperate desire to escape reality—believing a dream world could save him. Save everyone.
And now, when he was finally inside that dream—inside the world he had longed for—
He wanted out.
For the first time in years…
He wished to return to reality.
As the day edged toward noon, Obito—still sitting at his desk—slowly lifted his head. His gaze fell on the corkboard above the desk, nearly covering the window. It was filled with photographs: pictures of Team Seven, photos of himself, countless photos of Rin dominating the board, and old pictures of his late parents.
Seeing Rin’s photos made his cheeks burn.
He felt embarrassed by his past—(or present?)—self, who had been so obsessively devoted to his teammate.
After a moment of awkward hesitation, he began removing the photos one by one.
Not for any grand reason. He simply didn’t want to be seen as weird. He had already been labeled insane enough for his actions in the past.
After all, no one was crazier than him.
What kind of sane person indirectly kills their own teacher and his wife right after she gives birth, leaving their child orphaned?
Who in their right mind releases a bijuu just to attack and destroy a peaceful village?
Who could be sane enough to manipulate a shinobi village’s government by controlling their Kage?
And surely no sane person—no matter how bold or foolish—would declare war on all five great nations.
…Yeah.
If he really thought about it, Uchiha Obito was insane.
Something had always been wrong with him.
He exhaled slowly and let his head drop onto the desk. The photos of Rin he’d removed were still clutched loosely in his hand. His eyes closed as his thoughts spiraled, his mind racing through worst-case scenarios.
Without realizing it, his grip tightened.
His thoughts turned chaotic. His heart pounded. His head throbbed. And without him noticing, his chakra destabilized.
A sudden surge erupted from his left hand—hot, burning.
Obito jerked upright with a sharp gasp, stumbling back from the chair as flames flared in his palm. The chair toppled over behind him. The photos slipped from his grasp, igniting instantly and crumbling into ash. The remaining scraps fluttered to the floor.
Clutching his burned left hand with his right, Obito stared in shock at the ashes scattering at his feet.
The pain grounded him.
This wasn’t a genjutsu.
This was real.
He was really here.
So… this was reality.
Questions flooded his mind.
Why?
Why was he here?
Was this time travel? But how? Who did this? And why him?
The more he thought, the worse his headache grew.
Was this his chance to fix everything?
To stop things before they went wrong?
But what if he failed again?
What if he couldn’t save the world—worse, what if he made everything even worse?
Fixing the past didn’t guarantee a better future. A single wrong step could lead to a different kind of destruction.
Obito stayed silent for a long time.
Then, slowly, he clenched his fist and lifted his head.
He had made his decision.
Whether this was the Infinite Tsukuyomi or the real world, He would fix his mistakes.
No matter what happened.
He would try to set everything right.